A Study of the Portrayal of Racism in the Book, Film, and Television Versions of H.G

Hugvísindadeild IN BLACK AND WHITE: A STUDY OF THE PORTRAYAL OF RACISM IN THE BOOK, FILM, AND TELEVISION VERSIONS OF H.G. BISSINGER'S FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS Ritger til B.A.-prófs Heimir Berg Vilhjálmsson Febrúar 2009 Háskóli Íslands Hugvísindadeild Enskuskor IN BLACK AND WHITE: A STUDY OF THE PORTRAYAL OF RACISM IN THE BOOK, FILM, AND TELEVISION VERSIONS OF H.G. BISSINGER'S FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS Ritger til B.A.-prófs Heimir Berg Vilhjálmsson Kt.: 261082-5949 Leibeinandi: Julian Meldon D’Arcy Febrúar 2009 2 ABSTRACT This essay is about H.G. Bissinger’s non-fictional book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream and its portrayal of racism in connection with a small Texan town’s high school football team. The portrayal of racism in the book will be compared to how two other versions of the story confront the subject, and which version addresses it most effectively. The other versions discussed consist of a Hollywood feature film released in 2004, produced by Brian Grazer and directed by Peter Berg, which bears the name of the book, and the first season of a television series, produced and directed by the same producer and director of the movie, released in 2006, and which also holds the original name (IMDB). Although the blatant racism that Bissinger reveals as the norm in West Texas during his residence in the depressing oil town of Odessa is confronted separately by all three versions, they portray the problem in different ways and are therefore subject to comparison. This essay is going to reveal through evidence, argument and discussion, that it is in fact the original book by the author Bissinger that shines the clearest light on the issue of racism. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS: Abstract………………………………………………………………......2 Introduction………………………………………………………………4 Brief Assessment of the Materials in Discussion…………..…………….5 Racism Unveiled………………………………………………………....7 Railroad Tracks…………….……..…….………………………………..9 Only Way Out…………………….……………………………………..12 Black Animals.…………….……….………………………………..….15 Back in Odessa...………………………………………………………..18 Explosive Racism……………………………………………………….20 Casual and Rampant…………………………………………………….23 Epilogue…………………….…………………………………………...26 Works Cited…………………….…………………………………….....27 4 INTRODUCTION The book, Friday Night Lights by the author H.G. Bissinger, tells the story of the 1988 high school football season of the Permian Panthers, and simultaneously of the whole town of Odessa. Initially, Bissinger only wanted to write a sports book about high school football in general, but once in Odessa he realized he had to write about the impact it had upon daily life in the town as well. Although it was a town whose economy was driven by the instability of the oil industry, it was just as much a town of high school football. The town was held together by the football team and it did not matter in what condition the economy was, what the weather was like, or even who was the president of the United States, as for fifty odd minutes every Friday night during the fall, the Permian Panthers fought for the continuing honor of the town. Despite the closeness the inhabitants of Odessa felt every time the Friday night game came nearer, it was not a deep-rooted feeling since the town was rife with all kinds of prejudices, especially concerning the racial attributes of their neighbors. This essay on Friday Night Lights will argue that although racism is evident throughout the non-fictional book by Bissinger, as well as in the Hollywood movie and prime time television show inspired by the book, it is Bissinger’s original version which presents us with the most realistic treatment of this subject because he manages to confront the subject more thoroughly than Peter Berg and Brian Grazer, a director on the one hand and a producer on the other, manage to do in their other versions, and gives details of prejudice from the very beginnings of the town’s history. As a result, Bissinger manages to catch the essence of racism, whereas the other versions are not able to do so and therefore lack the same depth in their discussion of this phenomenon. 5 BRIEF ASSESSMENT OF THE MATERIALS IN DISCUSSION The book, Friday Night Lights, is a true story of the most awful racism Bissinger had ever witnessed. It portrays the story of a town, more than that of a team, in pursuit of the ultimate dream of becoming champions of the state of Texas and describes “the wonder of a group of boys coming together with little more than a dream in their heads and somehow getting an inch away from that dream” (Bissinger, 2001). While living in Odessa, Bissinger witnessed too many social problems to ignore them and decided to discuss most of them in his book. Among these problems was the issue of racism, which is clearly one of the most appalling and in the same way most striking feature of the dwindling oil town. The racism was so casual that nobody even noticed it anymore since everybody had their minds so imprinted with views of the black population, and therefore most of them did not even care if it was racist, that was simply the way in Odessa, Texas, during the year of 1988. A few years after the publication of the book, a movie version, based on the events depicted in the book, was produced by Brian Grazer, in association with director Peter Berg and writer H.G. Bissinger. The movie is true to the source of the book although with minor differences, but the heart of it “chronicled the enjoyment, pressure, and pain placed upon the team of 17 year old boys” (Mazurek). The biggest difference from the book is the fact that the movie is not able to go into the all the issues Bissinger discusses in his book and therefore it focuses on the football aspect, rather than being a study of small town Texas life, with all the faults and imperfections it contains. As a result, due to the depth of the book, the movie cannot follow the book to the core of its sociological studies, for as the author of the book, H.G. Bissinger, said in an interview that if everything in the book had been used in the movie, it would “have 6 been a ten-hour movie given the book’s complexity” (Bissinger, Reading Group Guides). The movie is therefore oriented toward football and skims past the racial and social bitterness portrayed in the book, despite glancing at the two aforementioned subjects. The television series that was made later, aims to go back to the source and follow the structure Bissinger had used in his book. That is, the directors only want to “use the football season to add structure, but the series will definitely be much more character driven” (Travers). By character driven he means that football would not be as important a factor as in the movie and that they would tell a story of a society rather than a team pushing for the highest honors in high school football, the state championship title, by making the football less accentuated. By following Bissinger’s construction they manage to delve deeper into the society under discussion, whereas the movie cannot do that, mainly because of the time limit it has to contend with. The series therefore manages to explore some of the issues that Bissinger puts forth in the book, but which have been left out of the film. It was intended to be a book that was a very fair and balanced look at sociology and that is definitely something we wanted to do in the show and one of the reasons why we wanted to do the show is so we could do what we couldn’t do in the movie, which Bissinger couldn’t do in the book, which is to explore these issues. (Topel) The television show manages to explore the issues that Bissinger portrays in his book, and could not be covered in the movie, and moreover, it is able to portray all the problems without being too offensive or biased toward either side, as with the subject of race for an example. As a result, 7 the television show does, in fact, manage to go into the racist debate without causing too much of a stir while discussing the problem. RACISM UNVEILED Deep inside the vast plains of Texas lies the small town of Odessa, a town that seems just as insignificant as every other small town that spreads its roots across the state of Texas. Indeed, there are many towns as depressing as Odessa that consist of the same characteristics, the same economical instability and melancholy for prolonged periods of the year. These towns feel the same, look the same and, on the whole, appear to be none other than Odessa in disguise, wandering some hundreds of miles from home. Nevertheless, one does not need to look closely at the town to realize that there is something special here, something that the other towns lack – they desperately want a successful high school football team comparable to the famous Permian Panthers. They are the heart and soul of Odessa and without them “life really wouldn’t be worth livin’” (Bissinger 20). If it were not for the great Permian Panthers, it is almost certain that life in Odessa would be even more pessimistic and disheartening. Although Bissinger’s primary topic is football, it is a book about so much more than high school football as it represents through sociological studies a fair view of a conservative town filled with racial prejudices, among other issues. Bissinger is able to illustrate the growth of the deep racism that was present in Odessa from the very establishment of the town, because he gets to know the heart of the town while he resided there, and that is one of the reasons that his representation is the most realistic one of those available and discussed here.

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